We’re all really thrilled and surprised at the same time.
— Julian Beutel
Film composer
When Seth Boyden, an animator at the California Institute of the Arts, asked Melville’s Julian Beutel to do the music for a 10-minute film titled An Object At Rest, neither had any idea it would be shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Beutel found out about it on Facebook.
“It was definitely unexpected,” he said, “We were really thinking it was just a final student project, then one by one these news announcements came about awards coming in and the Oscars was the last one, so we’re all really thrilled and surprised at the same time.”
The film has also won the Woody Award for Best Animation at the CalArts Producers’ Show and the Silver Medal in the Student Academy Awards.
Beutel said it was a “big honour” just to be asked to participate in the project.
Like most musicians, Beutel was a student initially.
“I don’t think it’s unusual for a lot of young kids to be coerced into music by their parents,” he explained. “It takes a lot of commitment away from playing with your friends and you’re often by yourself if you’re learning piano like I was, so yeah, it took a bit of cajoling from my parents, but my brother and sister were doing it, so it was fine.”
Even so, it was never a sure thing that he would become a professional.
“I think it’s always one of those gambles after high school when you can either go into the sciences or something very concrete or take a risk and pursue music,” he said. “I don’t know if one’s ever 100 per cent sure, or at least I wasn’t, that I was making the right decision, but I kind of knew in my heart of hearts that this is something I wanted to try to take to the next level.
“University seemed like a good way to keep exploring that. I had done some honour band programs and stuff like that and had kind of gotten a sense of what music at a university level might be like and it seemed to be in line with my interest. As well, I was really active in the Yorkton music festivals growing up and taking lessons so I was connecting with other students who were having similar thoughts and we were kind of bouncing ideas around and it seemed to make sense.”
He enrolled in Brandon University and graduated four years later, in 2011, with a Bachelor of Music in jazz trumpet.
The desire to pursue his Master’s took him to the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles.
“That was a two-year program,” he said. “I spent an extra year there working. I moved into L.A. proper and started interacting with the city, different film composers, bands and doing some teaching there as well. It was a really positive experience.”
An experience that had to eventually come to an end, however. He returned to Canada choosing to hang his hat in Winnipeg.
“On the one hand when I left I always kind of had in mind it was going to be a temporary visit,” he said. “My family is here in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Calgary so it was difficult being away from them and it was nice to come back to be closer to everyone.
“I was in the States on a student visa and I was able to extend that one year after my degree, then it expired and the process of getting another non-student-related visa to work and remain in the States as a musician is an expensive and complicated process so it just made the most sense to get back to Canada.
“I chose Winnipeg because a lot of my contacts and musician colleagues from Brandon University made the move out here, so it was the logistically easy place to set up and since I’ve been back they’ve been awesome about getting me involved in the music scene and playing and stuff, so that’s been really awesome.”
That is not to say he wouldn’t return to Hollywood and having his name on an Oscar-nominated and perhaps even an Oscar-winning film would not hurt his chances, he acknowledged.
“It’s something that’s on my mind,” he said. “If an opportunity presented itself, I would definitely jump on that, but for the time being Winnipeg is a very nice place to be.”
